Beyond 'The End'
by Toriano.Flacko
Summary: What really happens after everything ends? Does life go on when there's nothing to live for? Or is that when things really get... interesting? Post-End of Evangelion. Rated M for swearing, mindscrews, adult situations... swearing.
1. 01

_Disclaimer: This One (Toriano Flacko) does not own NGE._

**01: After the Fallout**

As I open my eyes on the first night of the Apocalypse, I come to the decision that I hate humanity. I mean, first we come up with lights so we have no reason to be scared of the dark, then hundreds of years later we come up with horror movies; for those of mankind with any kind of imagination, an actual _reason_ to be scared of the dark. Several reasons as time moves on, at that.

What kind of screwed up, backwards logic made things happen in that order?

This is the year... what, 2017? I don't know, I've officially been dead for a while; a while because I don't have any way of knowing how long I was. Dead, that is. Along with the rest of the world, but hey, I'm one of those first ones to wake up, so there's your sign.

So, back to why I now hate mankind; this is almost a hundred years since the first movie was made, according to Takeshi-sensei's rants about 'before Y2K...' Over three-hundred years since the first actual _light bulb_, I remember him saying. Yet we still have no way to prevent _GD power outages_?

Back when he first started using 'GD,' it only took me a minute to figure out what he meant the first time. On that note, that's the _biggest_ rendition of 'f_ you' I can actually bother noticing that nature's been giving us for years. And then, at some point in the 20th century, it became common rumor that by _at least_ this year, mankind would either be fighting killer robots for survival, or have faster-than-light travel. According to Takeshi-sensei, again.

I hadn't figured out how Misato's TiVo worked by the time everything went to hell, and I'm supposed to be the kid of two of the smartest people on the planet. The _hell_? Really? We're supposed to be off conquering the universe by now? But I'm way off-topic.

As I open my eyes on the night of the day the world ended (not that I knew that), I come to the conclusion that I hate humanity. Why else would I have ended it? We expected way too much from ourselves before we had the technology or moral standards to make it happen. On top of that, we did the stupid stuff backwards; you _give_ people reason to fear the dark before inventing a reason _not_ to be, geniuses. And even then, you make sure that reason doesn't go out every time some idiot messes with a power grid. Even _I've_ figured that much out, and this is from a teenager that has five nicknames that roughly equal 'stupid' in another language.

It's the first night of the end of the world's noisiest, pettiest, and most violent creatures. The sky is clear. There's a slight breeze blowing, carrying the scent of blood, processed maple syrup, salt, and smoke. I can count the stars if I actually put my mind to it.

Oh, wait, I can't. Because my eyes are scorching from the sudden environmental change of dark sleep to really-freakin'-bright nighttime. Seriously, what the hell? Mankind made ads for years, so I heard, about light pollution affecting nature, just a little while after Second Impact.

In my opinion right now, we had the right idea there, if nowhere else. Without the bright lights of Tokyo-3 or other towns further off, glaring in the distance and whiting out the horizon, it hurts to look at the sky. Especially with a way-too-close full moon glaring at full power, even with a band of red crossing it.

Ow. That _hurts_. I roll over, sleep thankfully still crippling my overall ability to move. Maybe I'll be able to go right back to sleep with my darkness, even if I actually kind of feel like getting up.

... Bitchnuggets. On the one hand, my nose is now crushed into what might be sand, on what might be a beach, with the rest of the front half of my body in the same condition. On another hand, the weird sound-effects breathing in that position reminds me of choice killers from the ancient horror-flick fests Asuka often got me, Misato, and Rei to take part in with her.

On the _other_ hand, I am now breathing in dirt. Bitchnuggets. I try not to cough up a lung as my eyes tear up, rolling over onto my hands and knees before hacking up- yuuuuck. That does _not_ look right. That doesn't even look like it belongs inside a human _body_. I dry heave for a few minutes, having nothing in my stomach to bring up, before leaning back, tilting, and rolling onto my ass, breathing evenly. Staring blankly into the edge of the world would have to do until I felt like finding somewhere else to sleep.

That's when I hear the rumble. It's not a deep one, like the kind I used to hear before there was an earthquake back when I lived with my uncle and aunt. It's almost a soft one, kind of like a big cat growling; slightly comforting, slightly sending me into a panic. It's actually pretty loud. Close by. Gurgling a little bit. Hey, is someone else besides me breathing in this wasteland?

It's an effort, but eventually I turn my head, wiping my face clear of sand absently, and eyes focusing on a shining... red. No, pale orange. Two mounds a little bigger than my palms, from what I can see, press up into, a red background, flattened against the dark sand below. The red trails up, then back down in three lines - the ones on the sides small and the one in the middle, above the mounds, larger. On the sides, the red is interrupted by bent black patches, then back to red. In the middle, a scarlet mane scatters over all of this, slowing at a hill of more red and two lines coming off of it, scratches of black twisting around them.

Oh. Wait. Those aren't mounds, those are tits. Above that, those two lines are arms, that middle one is a torso, and that's hair. And that's an ass, and those are legs. Long legs. Legs that, for some reason, don't end in shoes, but bare feet. That's a strange thing to notice- _holy crap it's Asuka._

Beyond that thought, _'oh, good, she's in her plugsuit_.'

Then '_aw, dammit, she's in her plugsuit.'_

It all comes back to me, as if I'd somehow forgotten. My name is Shinji Ikari, Third Child of Project E. I should be either 16 or 17 sometime this year, assuming my birthday wasn't a lie that my relatives made up to spite me for their own kid... what was his name, Timmy? On the sly, I've _probably_ lost the running bet I had with the other pilots, Ayanami and Asuka, by now, about who would die last.

Although now that I think about it, Rei gave us a major handicap up until Dr. Akagi went nuts and killed her clones. Still no excuse.

On top of this, maybe a day ago now, I _may_ have gone 'Posterboy for Teen Angst' and, you know, got everybody in the world killed. I mean, really, who expects an all-powerful killing machine (which is funny, because the girl who's face she took used to _act_ like a machine, and _pilot_ an actual killing machine) to ask them to make a wish? And for the people out there who actually do expect that kind of thing, who expects to have that 'wish' carried out to the fullest extent?

Sure it's not that hard to interpret 'I wish everybody would just die.' At the time, though, I was actually thinking less symbolism with people turning into goo, and more 'a stake through every heart and a cap in every ass.'

What can I say? The woman I spent the last year or so imprinting on as my surrogate mother (who had a "shoot first, ask why there's so much paperwork later" mentality) got shot and killed in the process of saving me, kissing me, shoving me into an elevator and therefore doomed all human life on the planet. And I didn't realize that she was dead until I was halfway to my Eva. That was some _seriously_ depressing shit right there.

Then it hits me again. _Holy crap I killed everyone_. And it's not like a 'dude, I totally _owned_ everybody, I'm _so f_ing badass_' thing. It's more of a '_What the f_ was I on when I said that?_' thing.

It doesn't have as much impact as I thought it should have. More importantly, I'm apparently hearing Asuka's stomach growling, which is amazingly loud from more than ten yards away, even considering the silence… hey, didn't I try to kill her a while ago? Before and after dragging her out of Instrumentality with me? Hmmm… must be some reason she's still alive. Don't know what it is, but I can put money on it being really f_ing important.

Man, memory-loss sucks. Especially when it gets in the way of figuring shit out. Man.

I don't bother wondering why she's on her front, head turned to the side and looking like she was crawling towards the road; I can distinctly remember her being on her back and still, with my hands around her neck. I can remember wondering why she doesn't fight back. I can also remember thinking something like _"Tell –me- to 'get back in the kitchen,' will you? Die and -stay- dead this time, trick!"_

_Really_ need to figure out just what that was all about sometime. And I can honestly hope I didn't do something I'd regret later. Considering that she hadn't bothered to kill me in my sleep, instead using any energy she had to move away from me, I guess not… I hope I get my memory back soon. Until then, I guess it would only make sense to keep myself sane with some company.

So, I pick Asuka up, throw her over my shoulder when she half-consciously growls at me, and against my better judgment, move towards a growing tail of smoke in the distance. After all, where there's smoke, there's fire. And where there's fire, there's… uh, obviously clean water?

Damn my short attention span. Damn history classes for giving me half-assed quotes that I can't completely remember and I'm sure wouldn't help me anyway. And damn this redhead for being heavier than she looks.

But God's in his Heaven. And all is f_ed up with this world.


	2. 02

_Disclaimer: This is gonna turn real redundant real fast, I just know it. No, I'm not talking about this whole 'disclaimer' thing, it's... you wouldn't understand. We've been, like, trying for three days straight to, like, get this ONE DERPIN' CHAPTER OUT and last night it wouldn't save, right? Then this morning he forgot to submit the finished product, then at school he editted it about for the other account, then the school caught on and wouldn't let him log in through the proxies... It's... it's like, depressing, yo?  
_

_Real Disclaimer: Sorry, the Emo One took over for a minute there. This One (Toriano Flacko) does not own NGE._

**02: The Not-So Great Awakening of Asuka the Great**

It's the same for everyone in the world; a certain image comes to mind when one refers to 'God'. For some, an urban myth, some faceless person to swear on when suspected of lying. An elderly, dark-skinned man with grey or white hair, either meditating on a cloud or pointing a finger of blame from the heavens. A pale little girl, obnoxious or quiet, that goes relatively ignored for a time before suddenly disappearing like the subject of this sentence. An overweight, smiling, hairless creature that opens the road of enlightenment. An elephant with multiple limbs, and a tendency to switch shades of color from the rainbow.

Normally, no one would suspect a bald, middle-aged man with a golden, pointed goatee sitting behind a large desk of questionable origin; said man wearing a mask and a business suit, and said desk covered in will-o-wisp musings of what could have been towering piles of paper. And why would they suspect? He was asleep. And everyone knows that God doesn't sleep, especially not on the job.

... I said, 'especially not on the job.'

"Sure, I'd like a job," he mutters. "Bet it would be better than this turned out..."

Ahem. We seem to be experiencing technical difficulties with the staff. We'll get back to you on this.

**/andtheworldcomescrashingdown/**

_He didn't start strangling her immediately. First thing he did was sit there, a few feet away, staring at her. She, half-awake, could read his thoughts easily since he was thinking out loud... not that she understood much of what he was saying._

"Are you at peace now, Asuka?"_ A half-lidded blue eye gives away nothing, and there's no serene smile-of-death on her lips. She was barely conscious, and couldn't be bothered to make an expression. He probably figured that she was dead. Neither of them wonder why her arm and eye are bandaged, or who did it; what did it matter? _"Probably better than going back to that place... unless you're there now. Then this would suck for you. And if that was the case, I should be trying to help you now, right? But... I kinda don't wanna bring you back. You were kind of a bitch before, and I don't think dying and coming back to a world with just me would change that. So then you would bitch at me about being bored... the point is, nobody can hurt you anymore (and I hope to hell that you can't hurt me), wherever you are. Good-bye, Asu-"

_She moved, didn't even realize it. It wasn't even a flicker of motion. It was probably just his imagination, but he edges forward, softly, silently. She makes an effort to look in his direction, but..._

"Asuka?"

_The eye blinks again, and she can finally hear her own breathing past the sound of waves sloshing. Where were they, a beach? Why can't she feel her face... or her arms, her hands, her feet? Those were still attached, right? The eye blinks again, up at the dark-eyed boy, who's closer now._

"Oh... so you're alive,"_ he says in a strange voice. Hoarse, like he hadn't used it for a long time... or when he had, it had been for screaming. Screaming at God. Not like how he'd been speaking before. And there's a weird lilt to it... like he's back at Misato's house one day after school or sync tests, and the place is a mess. Like he has to _do_ something about it..._

_About what?_

"Man... that's no gooood. Unacceptable, you know? Life around other life brings pain. Pain brings more pain. Too much pain... it just brings irritation, and brings death. Life brings death_._

"That probably just went over your head if that look in your eye means what I think it means, so I'll spell it out for you. You are alive. I am alive. If we don't accept one another, we can hurt each other. We can kill each other..."_ She blinks again. She gets it, what he was saying. But this wasn't like him. This was not like him. Were these thoughts the aftershock of leaving Instrumentality behind? But she knew exactly what he was saying, recognized the exact words even... were these thoughts originally hers? _"So you know what that means, don't you Asuka... there can be only one."

_She remembers his hands around her throat, the feeling of a fire building in her chest. She wanted to fight back. That's who she was, right, through everything that happened and everything she did. Right? She was a fighter; born to fight, raised to fight, and quick fight back at everything with everything she had. She even fought becoming a pilot, until she was all her mother had... and look how that turned out._

_But she couldn't fight back, not right then. She didn't feel like it. She was too tired. She was still in shock at being alive again. She didn't want to be alive anyway. She deserved to die anyway. Those who couldn't do anything deserved death, and she couldn't even stay alive._

_These were excuses she piled onto one another to justify not doing anything. She would pick them apart later as lies, lack of oxygen, things she thought to make herself feel better. The fact of the matter was, she'd already forced him to snap and kill her once._

_She didn't want to hurt him anymore. That was what her oxygen-deprived brain told her, when all she really wanted to do was slap him and say "Creepy use of Highlander reference, stupid Shinji. Baaaad Stupid Shinji."_

_So when she raised her hand to touch his face, her sappy side saw it as her way of saying 'good-bye.' She wouldn't be the one to hurt him or scare him away, not anymore. She was tired of seeing those serious, hurt, blank looks on his face... No. That's not right. She was tired of being the cause of them._

_He let go, and it was like God punched her in the face. '**Nuh-uh-uh, you don't get to die yet**,' she could swear she hears a voice say, and star-bursts of black light explode in her eyes. She could only stare, left eye twitching behind the bandage, as tears fell on her face and the weight on top of her shifted back over her legs. She heard him sobbing, and behind that, the softest words she'd ever heard from him. From anyone, for that matter._

"Dammit, face, why do you choose now of all times to start leaking? Shut up, I'm not depressed! I will f_ you up if you don't stop this right now...! Quit... quit it, dammit! You suck!"

_She was very, very confused, but air was moving through her lungs again. Her eye stung, and she realized she had yet to blink since the moment his hands had touched her throat._

_Her eye moved -well, both moved, but only one eye saw anything- and she looked at the boy on top of her, him wiping his face as he swore, and realizes that now that he isn't choking her, something is moving... in her stomach... up... crap._

_"I feel sick..."_

**0iherpmyderptotheleft0**

They were in the Ierō Senbei residential district, a miniature city in the hills, on the outskirts of Tokyo-3. A suspiciously _abandoned_ miniature city in the hills, one that he had only been to on three occasions in his lifetime; once for the bar when he'd been running away from NERV, once a little while before the 13th Angel attacked, and once just the day before to see if he could get a few beers before going to see Asuka in the hospital. He had known at least five of the residents fairly well; enough to know when the Totally-Hot-but-Crazy Cat Lady was coming in his direction and to know when 'Dr. Nark' had stopped by the bar with a delivery.

He knew that even now with car alarms going off and the casino burning down, not one of them was alive, there, with him. So even with all the noise, Ierō Senbei was a ghost town, speaking with a silence that one Shinji was most aware of when he finally stopped there a few hours before sunrise. But his being wary does nothing to stop him from breaking into the first house he sees that isn't smoldering, or doesn't have a car instead of a front door. No, the things that stop him are the drowsy red Dobermans he can see lazing on the couch inside.

"Don't judge me," he says mildly to his travel companion as he looks back at the house pitifully. "Did you see how big those things were?" The redhead lazily bites him on the shoulder, Shinji having moved so he was carrying her around piggy-back an hour ago; dead to the world. He scratches the top of her head softly before swinging her from his back to his arms, by chance moving her into the bridal position.

It hadn't taken him long to get used to talking to her like this, a fact he would have found disturbing were he still thinking like he used to. Beyond that, it hadn't taken him a minute after they (he) started walking to get used to her weight over his shoulder, then on his back, now in his arms; he'd adapted to appreciating close contact, as opposed to how he was before. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the old Third Child actually was panicking... mildly. However, there was no immediate threat that the new Ikari Shinji couldn't handle, so he shut up fairly quickly.

Double-checking the next place that looked okay, the former Pilot pauses, debating just how he would make his way inside. This goes on for about a minute, him using a still-unconscious redhead as a sounding board for ideas, before he finally takes a convenient lawn gnome to the three-by-five plate-glass window in the front of the house, breaking out a corner just big enough for him to slide in and open the door from the other side without cutting himself. It was an elaborate method (_why didn't I just break down the door in the first place?_ he finds himself wondering), but it worked. Not to say that he didn't feel bad about breaking part of the window.

"I would appreciate it if you didn't judge me here either; it was either him or you. Just be glad I didn't try punching it first."

In the hours since he'd woken up, Shinji had learned a few things about himself in talking with Asuka, the first of which being that he _loathed_ awkward silences with a passion (in which he bemoaned the loss of his recorder before wondering just how that would help in this situation). In abridging his life story in a five-minute mouth-off to the unconscious girl, he'd realized that it wasn't exactly humanity as a whole that he couldn't stand, but the unnecessary things that came with it; insanity, patronization, classification, genre-definement, the moments of silence that stretched into minutes, hours, perhaps even days between two people that didn't know how to deal with each other.

And why didn't they know? They had no way to know. No one person could fully know what another is thinking, or feeling, or how to make them understand what is trying to be said. If such a person existed, they would be hard-pressed to solve all the world's issues, and that's if they actually felt like using their life for something so counter-productive.

He'd said as much, explaining his theory to the German as best he could without waving his arms around and dropping her on the gravelly road he'd taken. She'd responded by kicking him in the hip and snoring especially loud. He got the feeling that she had been awake for a minute and actually didn't like what he thought. She had actually been dreaming of chasing blonde leprechauns, who for some reason kept screaming "_She's a ginger!_", or "_Gingers don't have souls!_", and giggling in ecstacy as she ripped them apart with her teeth.

Automatically, he was better off not knowing what went on in her head. So he had kept walking down that particular road. In walking down that particular road, he had found this particular city, which he recognized as the "_I can see Misato-san's apartment from here!_" city. And in finding this particular city, needing a place to rest his feet, he had found this house.

Ikari Shinji was no expert when it came to the art of 'breaking and entering' at the time of his death, less than a full day before now. He had been good at two things in his life; killing Angels and running away, although he had been trying to cut it out with the latter when the world ended.

Now in his second life, there were no Angels to fight. There was less, almost nothing to run from, compared to how things had been before. He was facing the consequences of the Human Instrumentality Project and his response to it, stuck in an empty world with no one for company except a violent, half-blind German and animals that had no one to take care of them.

But above all else, at this point in time, he was hungry, slightly sweaty, and his feet kind of hurt. So he sets the redhead on the first proper bed he finds, wraps her in the bedspread, and goes off to the kitchen to make himself a sandwich, not once wondering just whose house he had invaded.

After all, it wasn't like he was sleeping on his or her grave, right?*

**(/idonteffinknowdude)**

_In the Office of God, there sits a tall, Asian fellow with a Chia-pet-esque hairdo, bridging his fingers in front of his face like it's the most physically exciting thing in the world to do._

"So you're saying that it's not?" _He says in perfect, clear English._ "Well _duh_ I say it, and _duh_ you're going to understand what I'm saying. I'm _God_. I can make stuff like that happen."

_So he's talking to no one-_

"Uh, _hello_?" He glares. "I'm talking to you, Idiotic Voice That Won't Let Me Sleep When I Have Free Time."

_Oh, so you're awake now? Only took you, what, five hours and a few cherubim poking you in less-than-famous parts. Also, _wow_, didn't know I had a title._

"I'm not going to call you 'Narrator' because that gives you power over me, and I'm _God_. I don't like letting stuff like that happen. Now, what did you wake me up for?"

_Well, somebody's grouchy..._

"I don't have time for this. Get the Hell out of my office."

_But I'm not in your office..._

"If you're trying to trick me into thinking that you're gone, stop telling me what you're doing! You know what, screw you and your semantics! As of right f_ing now, I'm having the Metatron fix the Stairway to Heaven so you can't get back up here unnoticed, ever again!"

_Keh, and how do you think that's gonna work out?_

"I'm gonna get her to reroute all paths to Heaven so they cut off and go straight to Hell. How's that sound?"

_… But I'm the narrator. Stuff like that doesn't affect me._

"You are correct~," _he smiles, sitting back in his chair and steepling his fingers in front of his face. The voice pitch changes, and the narrator winces at the emphasized 'twang' in the words._ "It _doesn't _affect you. But it _will_ affect any souls that make their way up here from now on. And it will all be _your_ fault."

_... Nuh-uh. You gave the order._

"That's true," the Asian laughs. "But I'm _God_ if you haven't noticed. Who do you think they gonna believe, White Boy?"

_… Thou dost _sucketh greatly_. You know that, right?_

**0iherpmyderptotheright0**

_She sees a dark red sky as the sun goes down, relieving the burning in her throat with air as her eyes water. He's gone, over by a rock at the edges of her sight, not even five feet away. He's quiet now, probably sleeping. Her senses shut off a few minutes ago from shock. She's probably panicking._

'What is this? Wha... what is this?' _Her eyes are wide open, one open to nothing but darkness, the other, a skyline of black between red and it's pale reflection. A few tilted buildings poke out above a bloody sea with no waves. It's a pretty messed up picture. She's not seeing it._

'Didn't I die? It felt like I died! Where's my Eva? My arm...!'

_Some reaction sparks from her brain and she grabs at nothing with her bandaged hand, noting how cleanly it had split back then in her mind's eye. She gasps when her knuckles crack from the grip, and unclenched her hand. She felt something scratchy, thin against the skin of her palm. Paper? Bandages. Her fingers are shaking, twitching, when she brings her hand up, just above her face, and balls it into a fist._

'I'm... alive?'

A blue eye opens to darkness, a shaky silence. The dream -no, the memory- has played it's course. And all she can do is hum.

"Hmmmm..." She doesn't need any help in figuring out that she's alive, no. She knows that, just like she knows that she should be a little surprised by the fact. She's had a second-uh, third- chance at living forced into her hands. By whom, she didn't know, and something else she didn't know was whether or not to be thankful that he or she moved her to somewhere more comfortable than the ground outside to sleep. Asuka isn't even sure that the reason she's here is a good one; did someone else come back from the LCL, find her where she lay, and bring her here just to have his -or her- way with her body?

'_No_,' she thinks in response to the train of thought. '_This is not an American porno. Things like that don't actually happen, least of all in this kind of situation..._' Or did they? Did this kind of thing happen often? No. So what basis did she have to imagine that '_things like that_' don't happen? She didn't have any basis, she realizes, and while that doesn't scare her, it shakes what little optimism she has about the situation.

So she wraps herself tighter in her blanket, noting that she's in a room with a window; sunlight is making it's way through the blinds to the wall she is now staring at, so it's morning outside. Or maybe it's evening...? She has to know this, among other things, if she's going to figure out her situation and whether or not she had to kill a sicko to get out of this with her honor intact. Now, if only she could figure out where she was... and was there a shower running somewhere?

**//**

It hadn't taken him long at all to make a sandwich, and it took a fraction of that time for him to inhale it. This was a normal fact of everyday life when it came to him, or any other growing teen; always take longer to make something than you take to eat/destroy it, and always do it in that exact order.

What _wasn't_ a normal fact of everyday life for Shinji was that he was full, but only after taking in a few bowls of cold curry from the stove to go with the sandwich. Then the entire serving of fruit salad sitting in the refrigerator to go with the curry. Then the entire fresh package of rice crackers he'd found in one of the cupboards. Then the quart of milk he'd taken in to wash all that down. In three minutes or less. He didn't know exactly how long he'd taken as he hadn't thought to time himself.

But he couldn't freak out about it. So what if he had a larger-than-it-used-to-be appetite? Maybe it was all just because he hadn't eaten in longer than he thought, and was actually just hungry enough to go without cooking for once. Besides, if he got freaked out by something so trivial, then he wouldn't be ready if something weird actually _did_ happen later in this second life.

So all he would admit to thinking on the subject was '_well, shit, that was weird_' and '_should I worry about puking? Probably shouldn't have eaten all that at once_'. This was before he belched a cloud of smoke on his way out of the kitchen.

After staring at it for a good minute, poking at it, and finally sniffing the cloud, he folded his arms and stepped back.

"This is not weird at all," he said to no one, nodding. "I totally do this kind of thing all the time. Nothing surprises me anymore."

After making sure that the cloud wasn't going to respond in a language he could understand, Shinji nodded again, moving towards the bathroom with the empty pile of clothes he'd found in the kitchen. He had no idea who they belonged to, or even if they were meant for a girl or boy. All he knew was that, now that he'd had something to compare it to, his school uniform smelled of LCL. Scratch that, _he_ smelled of LCL. He was going to take a shower, change clothes, and maybe go to sleep afterwards. When he woke up, assuming that Asuka hadn't killed him in his sleep, he would figure out either what to do with her, or how to explain things to her. After that, if she still hadn't killed him, he would see about what the hell they would do in this empty world.

Leave it to say, Shinji went into the bathroom thinking about a good many things, some of which pertaining to the future, others, a lack thereof. He didn't openly show that he noticed when the cold water hit his skin, him sitting at the edge of the bath in a '_Don't Bother Me I'm Thinking Deep Thoughts_' pose. He didn't even show that he felt it when the cold water got warm, then hot, scalding his skin and scalp as he sat. But at this point he wasn't contemplating his future.

No, he was contemplating how the hell he'd fallen asleep the second he'd sat down, somewhere deep in the back of his mind.

Almost soundlessly, the unconscious form of the young Ikari eventually slides down to the bed of the tub. He is still there, hours later, when the sun breaches the horizon outside.

God is in his heaven. God is at odds with the narrator.

And all is still f_ed up with this world.

* * *

*Sleeping on a dead person's grave is one of those 'Black Magic' superstitions that no one knows where it came from, only that the meaning is obvious. Such an action is akin to speaking ill of someone else's misfortune; it's disrespectful, and the equivalent of karma jinxing you to 1) die soon and 2) have someone sleep on your resting place, or worse, urinate on it.**

**Come on, who would have believed that had I worded it better?

If you have anything you want to say (flames, opinions, questions) please refer to the comment section below~!

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	3. 03

_Disclaimer: This One (Toriano Flacko) Does not own NGE, Beelzebub, Red Robin, or any other franchise currently in existence._

**03: Cloudy Skies  
**

"**Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there was a barbaric, ruthless, defiant, demon-like bastard who thought nothing of his fellow man..."**

In the middle of a mostly-abandoned city in an almost-empty country, on a continent virtually void of humanity in what could be called an "almost dead" world, a lone, imposing figure stumbles through the gates of what was once Ishiyama High, then Demon High, then, most recently, Ishiyama-15.

As the father figure of Satan's youngest son looks over the remains of his old school, he can't help feeling that he's been through something like this before. If the reason for his confusion came into question, the fact that he hadn't slept for the past few days could be accepted as an excuse.

Still, when he turns around to see half the city leveled in a similar fashion to the school, he remembers just why it looks familiar and-

_Hey! What the hell are you doing here? This site ain't open to the public yet!_

**Huh? The hell? There were other survivors?**

_Did you hear me, moron? Or do you really wanna have us take over your story?_

**Chill out, dude, we were just-**

_Wrong place, wrong time, get the hell out!_

**Okay, okay, we're going... asshole.**

(69)_(69)

Miles away from anywhere in general, in the lower west-side of nowhere, on the coast of reality and the shores of dreams, a form rises from the red sea. It is a bipedal life form, thus a mammal, as fish still haven't developed the constitution to withstand being submerged in LCL without mutating, nor the ability to float, hover, or spontaneously grow functional legs.

A near-nonexistent, air-thin layer of stringy follicles cover nothing in confidence, spread over most of the body from the neck down and only noticeable if one stared, barring strengthened eyesight. On the head, instead, is a mane of brown hair, normally tame and straight, but now puffing up like a cat's tail for no obvious reason beyond possible shock and exposure to moisture and a tepid climate.

Wide, dark-green eyes blink for the first time since returning to human form, she takes her first breaths into her lungs, and slowly but surely, she comes to her full height. All 5'1" of her, considering the absence of high heels or her uniform shoes.

For a few moments, the woman is disconcerted about a few things: _why am I nude? Why am I standing in LCL? Where is everybody? Am I under the influence of perspective altering drugs? Why am I standing outside, naked, and waist-deep in LCL? What time is it? Why do I smell smoke? What happened? And _**why**_ am I _**nude**_?_

She covers her chest slowly, casually with one arm, while taking in her surroundings with the gaze of a hawk, and ascertains that she is alone before she begins walking for the shore. She doesn't run or skip, feeling the rocks and mutated coral beneath her feet and knowing she's more likely to fall on her face and hurt herself if she rushes things.

Besides that, this could all be a drug-induced illusion that the JSSDF had taken to using on NERV personnel in their invasion (_oh, right, _**that's**_ what happened..._), and running anywhere could really fuck up her day with a brick wall. Ooooor a couple of rounds of leaden slugs clearing a path through her chest (_and doesn't that just sound _**delightful**_?)_.

Or, assuming that she wasn't tripping out on tear gas and this was reality, she might trip on a sharp rock, poking holes into her legs in the fall, and maybe hit her head on yet another rock when she tries to recoil away from the pain, conveniently stripping her of the presence of mind to breathe properly as she falls under the waves. Which is redundant, since-

"What?" She stops, looking around before tilting her head and squinting as something leaks out of her ear in a steady stream. "... No, there's no way. I have no conscience, I'm just hearing things. Besides, I don't skip... whatever."

She shakes her head when the stream slows, then drips to a stop, and makes her way to the white, sandy beaches of the shore. Once there and taking in the leafless trees, she is hit by a pang of hunger, so she turns around and promptly sits on a rock slightly bigger than her butt to think. Her intent, as of that moment, is formed into steps:

1) Find food.

2) Figure out where I am.

3) Debate with self about what I'm doing here.

4) Find more food.

5) Ascertain whether or not I'm actually dead and this is some sort of limbo or at least get an explanation for what happened, preferably without being chased around by smoke monsters and polar bears.

6) Locate ice cream to deal with the trauma the above is guaranteed to cause.

7) Back to what I'm doing here.

8) Decide whether or not lack of clothes will hinder or help along with social life.

In that. Exact. Order.

Then sunlight hits the less submerged half of the super-sized, decaying face of the First Child, which gives her a wide-eyed stare from at least a mile out in the red sea, and her intent is derailed. Choking on a gasp, she jumps up and away from the vision, tries to gain footing on the rock she was just sitting on, fails, and somehow manages to flip over backwards, landing headfirst on the right-angle edge of yet another rock.

In her eyes, the world turned on a horizontal dime, interrupted by a sickening crunch and sharp pain in the back of her head, moments before her eyesight dimmed.

And the sun continues to creep over the hills in the distance. A new day.

And Lilith smiles.

-^-0-^-

"Soooo..." She scratches her cheekbone as she examines the wooden cabinets above the sink, the ceiling light, the crack in the corner... anything but the ice pack Shinji holds over the baseball-sized knot on his forehead. Or the darkening bruises spotting his arms and back. Or the dented pan on the counter. Or the towel that barely covers the space between his waist and his knees.

Or the blank stare that he's been giving her for the past ten minutes. She tries again to explain herself, drawing on the heat she used to have behind her logic when yelling at him, as she clears her throat.

"Well, it's not like it's _my_ fault, right?" _It totally was, no matter how she twisted it._ "How was I supposed to know it was _you_ in the shower?" _Besides the part where he was the only one around both times she had been awake before, and if she actually thought about it, she could remember him talking to her... a_ _lot._ "All I knew was, there was somebody I didn't know doing something suspicious in the other room."

"Well... that may be true..." _He bought it? _She sweat-drops as he rubs his nose. "But still. You should have been able to tell it was me after you got a _fifteen hit combo on my face_. I never wanna wake up like that again, I swear."

"Uh... well..." _You counted? I mean, think, Asuka, think! You didn't get through college using your body like everyone else did!_ "... At that point, really, your face looked more like raw meat than anything, so..." _Plausibility! You can't deny my opinion! Even if I am digging a hole in my own guilt, you can't prove it! Ha!_

He takes a moment from glaring to yawn, and she shivers at the grinding crackle his jaw makes. _I mean... even though I feel like apologizing now, I mean, damn..._

"Even after that," he grumbles, rubbing his eyes. "I don't think you had to knee me in the gut and do an orbital drop-kick on my 'nads. Just sayin'." She feels the beginnings of a rage tic forming at her temple, even as she turns to the sink to avoid looking at him altogether.

"... To be honest, I didn't think I hit you that hard," she claims after a moment. _I mean, even though I thought I saw flames coming off my foot at one point, you're able to talk now, so maybe I held back?_ He grunts, and she suppresses the urge to dodge-roll into the hallway. _Maybe I should have hit you harder and oh god why am I thinking about this?_

"So you did kick me? To be honest I was way out of it at that point, so I thought I was hallucinating. I mean, you were on fire and everything..."

-()-()-

The morning of that first day was actually clear, as opposed to how it came about, even how it ended. Where the day before, around the time that the 18th Angel fell, the skies burned dark like a soggy scab, today the sun rose into a sky like any other. There were clouds, scattered and thin, but enough to veil patches of grass and LCL. A halo effect was shining from behind a cloud bank on the horizon, detailing every other sunbeam as the planet revolved to face the day.

The only major difference between this day and any other, in the way of sight, was that this sky is filled with green, purple, and blue waves of aurora. But there was nothing _he_ could do about that (as if he wanted to), so he simply took it in stride as he made his way through a residential district, on the outer limits of his city.

Okay, so it wasn't quite _his_ yet, and it wasn't like he actually wanted it. Sure he had called dibs (accident), and been the first to arrive (accident), _and_ stated his claim as Emperor of Japan in the New World before anyone else could have (didn't count unless there were witnesses)... but until he had proper inhabitants for his city, it could not be defined as "his" nor a "city," as defined by the Boss's rules of play.

Besides, if he stayed away from his throne for long enough, some snot-nosed sucker might claim it in his absence. The how, why, and when didn't matter. As long as they were strong enough to put up a good fight, and had the _balls of steel_ it took to risk being made his near-eternal servant, he could wait.

In the meantime, he would be marking the boundaries of his territory. If he happened to gain a following of surviving natives while he was at it, it could only be a plus. Even if they were domesticated. And somewhat stupid.

"Gentlemen," he pauses in his march, turning on the heel of his sandals into the position of attention. He waits the extra minute for his small convoy to stop molesting his legs and licking themselves before he clears his throat.

"Uh, comrades...?" His leading general regards him for a second with one drooping eye before turning to roll around in a nearby patch of grass. A number of his soldiers follow suit. He tilts his head to the side until a joint pops, then takes a deep breath... then cups his mouth and whispers to the side:

"_Reeeeed Robin_." Over the course of three seconds, the entirety of his minion population is sitting up as straight as physically possible under their respective conditions, yowling and whining in pitiful synchronization. He appreciates the attempt, but still throws one arm out ahead of him before they can get the response right.

"BEHOOOOOLD! The conquering of a new holy land is upon us! But a short while ago, this world faced a number of deconstructions at the same time, in what your former masters thought to be the 'Apocalypse.' Our duty here, of course, is a matter reconstruction and containment, in the case of subplots rolling on a loop, however...! The Boss has taken it into consideration, that this might as well be the Almighty's Divine Judgment! Ergo, it is our job to set up a solid foothold in this branch of reality, in preparation for our time!

"And if it just so happens that we weren't supposed to come this early, oh, well, we got a head-start on everyone else..." '_Depressing thought, that_', he thinks as he crosses his arms. '_More challenges as time goes on, yes, but less excuse for epic battles_.' "ANYWAY! Some of you may be wondering what we've been doing for the last couple odd hours, besides recruiting and wandering aimlessly... just so happens, we were looking for a functional base of operation while we were at it!"

One of the newer privates mewed loudly. "Why not somewhere in the city you ask? Too obvious." A long yowl. "Yes, I _did _figure there was some kind of underground structure from all the sinkholes. We are not currently taking up residence there because it does not seem important at this time." A subsequent facepaw. "The point is, I found a place that can hold all of us, maybe more, and it isn't even on fire yet! Or flood-damaged! If that's not enough for you, then too bad. Deal with it.

"Now, as I was _saying_... conquering, maggots, uh, breakfast... right, a house, a base of sorts. Now, I've had a suspicion for a while now that not all of The Enemy's forces have evacuated as they were supposed to. Of course, if we're as early as I think we are, this is no big deal," he shrugged, hands up in the air with an air of indifference. Then he grinned, eyes wide and glowing red. "What this _is_ is an opportunity!"

33#_#33

_AN: That took a lot longer than I thought it would. Yes, that's all I'm putting up this time._


End file.
